What's For You Won't Go Past You
by MaryandMerlin
Summary: Angsty letter fic. Hermione has to break the news, how will Viktor take it. HG/VK One-shot.


**Author's Note: Here you go my entry almost late but not quite! I hope you enjoy, not my comfort zone of writing.**

 **Prompts:**

 **Belated Birthday Gift -** Sophie

Hermione/Viktor, Angst, Bit of a bitter ending. I'm sorry it's not one of your better pairings!

 **QLFC -** Round 2

Chaser 2: Set in Durmstrang

Extra Prompts: (image) Heart in a cage, (song) All We Know - Chain-smokers, (style) letter-fic

 **Camp Potter** \- Campfire Songs

"We made plans to grow old. Believe me there was truth in all those stories we told." - The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus 'Cat and Mouse'

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own anything you recognise!

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What's For You Won't Go Past You

Viktor shivered and drew the fur lining of his cloak tighter around his shoulders. Durmstrang was always cold, bitterly so, but the exposed walk through snow and ice to the owlery was a particularly harrowing journey. It was only the years of practice that kept him sure-footed as he climbed the icy stairs and ducked into the meagre shelter that the owlery offered.

A short, sharp whistle had a magnificent eagle owl swooping down from one of the higher alcoves. It landed heavily on Viktor's outstretched arm, ruffling chestnut feathers and regarding him coldly with sharp yellow eyes. Viktor ignored the bird, reaching down to detach the small roll of parchment from his leg.

Viktor frowned at the size of it, it was only a slip of paper. Usually, Hermione's letters were quite a few pages long. With a feeling of concern, Viktor slipped off the string and unfurled the parchment, letting the owl jump from his arm with a loud screech.

 _Viktor,_

 _There is something we must speak about, but I'd rather do it face to face. Do you go home for Easter break? Could we arrange to meet?_

 _Hermione._

Viktor felt his heart sink. Already the tone of this letter was cold and detached. She had signed it differently than normal. More formal than the playfully flirtatious greeting he was used to from his friend. It had been going so well;what could possibly have changed?

X

Her reply came in the middle of the night. His eagle owl tapped viciously on the window of the dorm room and Viktor didn't hesitate before throwing open the window. His roommates grumbled as the blast of icy air filled the room but didn't say anything outright. They had all witnessed Viktor's reserved nature over the last few days, his distance. He spent much of his staring into space, lost in maudlin thoughts.

This letter was much thicker and once Viktor had removed it from the bird's leg he slammed the window shut and jumped into his bed. The curtains were drawn with a flick of his wand and he added a silencing charm for good measure.

This moment was private.

He examined the parchment. Part of the corner was torn and dog-eared as if it had been folded and fiddled with. An outward reflection of the inner turmoil?

His letter had been rushed, his desperation seeping through into the ink and parchment. He had explained how he wouldn't be going home until the summer and floo was prohibited in Durmstrang. That if they wanted to meet, they would have to wait until the summer like they had planned. The length of this letter suggested Hermione wasn't going to wait that long.

 _Viktor,_

 _This isn't an easy letter to write, that's part of the reason I wanted to do it in person. Unfortunately, it seems that is impossible to arrange. Rather than drag this out for longer than necessary I think it's better to do in a letter, even if that does seem cold and calculated. Please know that it isn't and that I wish it could be different._

 _It's been a year, almost, since you left and we have been talking all this time. I know we were never anything official but I felt like it was special, and I think you did too. It's been a long year, Viktor, and a lot has happened and I think in this time I've changed._

 _We were just kids during the Triwizard Tournament, or at least I was, and I've realised that as handsome and charming as you are I can't deal with this sort of distance. I need someone closer who I can physically see and talk to. I feel like we're trapped in this cycle of trying to hold onto something that we don't really want. I'm tired of feeling guilty. I feel like I'm having to keep my heart in a cage so that I don't accidentally cheat on you or hurt you when we aren't even really, well, anything. Do you know what I mean?_

 _I'm going to be honest with you, my heart isn't in this anymore. It's somewhere else, with, with someone else and it's not fair to either of us to keep this going when there isn't anything here._

 _I know this is an awful way to do it. I wish with all of my heart that we could have sat down and talked about this but, I'm sorry Viktor. I think we should stop writing like this before someone gets hurt._

 _I wish you all the best and happiness,_

 _Hermione._

A teardrop splashed onto the parchment, blurring the neat signature at the bottom of the page. The pain in his chest was so different and so unlike him that it took Viktor a second to realise it was his tears marring the letter.

He crumpled up the letter into his fist, anger flooding in to smother the pain and he smashed a fist into the bed post. How dare she reduce him to this snivelling idiot. How dare he let himself be brought low by a 16-year-old girl in another country.

No, he would not be brought down by Hermione Granger.

X

Her final letter caught him 2 days later at breakfast. Viktor's anger had been short-lived and he had written a reply full of self-loathing, begging Hermione to reconsider. He had regretted it the second his owl had disappeared across the horizon. He had returned empty handed and Viktor had tried to accept this. So when a sleek feathered snowy owl he didn't recognise fluttered down in front of his uneaten toast and eggs, Viktor was slow to react.

On autopilot, he reached for the letter tied to the leg of the bird and, giving it a nibble of toast, let it leave. He didn't expect it to be her, not after she had insisted they stop communicating, so when he recognised the neat little scrawl his heart lurched with unfounded hope.

 _Viktor,_

 _I told myself replying to you would only make things worse, but I felt that you deserved even more of an explanation._

 _I know that we made plans to grow old together, and I promise that at the time there was truth in all those stories and hopes we spun but I was barely 15 when we met and though I'm only 16 now so much has happened. I've had to grow up and fight for what I believe in this year and I can't say these experiences haven't changed who I am or what I want._

 _I'm sorry to say that what I want isn't you, not anymore. You must have felt the distance growing between us;we were falling apart and I'm just letting go. I hope you can too. We're two hearts just beating to different rhythms and that isn't something we can fight. This is familiar and safe, but it isn't right and we wouldn't make each other happy._

 _I'm sorry, but I have some words to live by if you'd like some final advice. What's for you won't go past you, Viktor. It's not me, but that doesn't matter in the long run._

 _I hope you can find your happiness._

 _Hermione._

Unsurprisingly, it hurt. But the pain in his chest wasn't the shocked stab it had been a few nights ago. He had had time to think since then, and he knew she was right. They had been growing apart, finding less and less to talk about and even less in common. They weren't compatible, not really, and she was right that the distance would help them both come to terms with it. This dull ache of longing he could deal with because he knew eventually that too would fade.

Carefully, Viktor reread the last few lines of the letter and a bitter-sweet smile tugged at his thin lips.

'What's for you won't go past you'.

Yeah, he could live for that.

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 **Just to clarify on the letter-fic prompt.**

 **549 words are letter. 785 is context but most of that focuses on the content of the letters. It was specified that the letter fic had to be letters and context focused on the letter(s).**

 **Please leave a review!**

 **Much Love, MaryandMerlin x**


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